Nick, J. M. (August 6, 2013). Reply by author to Guild on “Open Access Part I: The Movement, The Issues, and the Benefits” and “Open Access Part II: The Structure, Resources, and Implications for Nurses” OJIN: Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 18(3).

AIM: To describe the historical events surrounding the development of the National League for Nursing (NLN) Academic Nurse Educator Certification Program (ANECP) and document its transition from a committee to a commission. BACKGROUND: During the latter half of the 20th century, certification became a demonstrated standard of excellence in nursing. A few visionaries suggested that nursing education itself was a specialty, but the timing for certification was not right. METHOD: The events have been studied through three primary sources: archived minutes, oral interviews, and the authors' eyewitness accounts. RESULTS: Growing pains, personnel changes and the rapid growth from committee to commission occurred during a few short years. While the NLN made sound decisions during the change process by seeking evidence and the guidance of experts and consultants, unexpected challenges occurred. CONCLUSION: The tremendous growth of the ANECP in its first years demonstrated that change was clearly desired so long as it was anchored in an evidence-based process focused on quality.

Mentoring is important for the recruitment and retention of qualified nurse faculty, their ongoing career development, and leadership development. However, what are current best practices of mentoring? The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of a model for excellence in establishing a formal mentoring program for academic nurse educators. Six themes for establishing a formal mentoring program are presented, highlighting best practices in mentoring as culled from experience and the literature. Themes reflect aims to achieve appropriately matched dyads, establish clear mentorship purpose and goals, solidify the dyad relationship, advocate for and guide the protege, integrate the protege into the academic culture, and mobilize institutional resources for mentoring support. Attending to the six themes will help mentors achieve important protege outcomes, such as orientation to the educator role, integration into the academic community, development of teaching, scholarship, and service skills, as well as leadership development. The model is intended to be generalizable for faculty teaching in a variety of academic nursing institution types and sizes. Mentoring that integrates the six themes assists faculty members to better navigate the academic environment and more easily transition to new roles and responsibilities.

The perinatal nurse, in collaboration with physicians, can use deep tendon reflexes as a powerful tool in determining the need to start, adjust, or stop magnesium infusion. Toxicity can be detected using physical manifestations as a guide. Clinical signs may be a better indicator than serum levels of tissue levels of magnesium. Whether magnesium is given to prevent seizures or for tocolysis, patients in both situations are at risk for developing toxicity and must be assessed regularly to ensure patient safety.

Deep tendon reflexes (DTRs) demonstrate the homeostasis between the cerebral cortex and the spinal cord. When these reflexes are disrupted, hyperreflexia (disease induced) or hyporeflexia/areflexia (drug induced) occurs. Although nurses perform DTR assessment regularly, it is difficult to incorporate theoretical principles in these assessments because of scant medical literature, a lack of nursing research, and time constraints in nursing programs. These conditions usually result in one-on-one training, causing reduced consistency. A comprehensive examination assists the clinician to apply theoretical principles, develop expert technique, and serve as a catalyst for clinical research.